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Hearts of the Home

Top Texas design pros take us inside four covetable kitchens and bathrooms. Plus: How to get the look in your own abode.

Keeping it Casual

A Modern Classic

Bright Ideas

A Room With a View

Keeping it Casual
An easygoing Austin kitchen sets the scene for a Houston family’s weekend getaways.

Just about every weekend, Meg Lonergan’s clients load up the car and make the drive from Houston to Austin, where their waterside second home awaits. The family’s dreamy retreat, situated on the shores of the Colorado River, wasn’t always so appealing, however. Built in the ’70s, the house had been added onto a number of times over the decades, and it needed a fresh start. “We took it to the studs,” says Lonergan, founder of Houston-based Meg Lonergan Interiors. The whole-home renovation included a complete overhaul of the kitchen, which opens onto the dining room and features doors leading outside, where the homeowners and their three daughters spend as much time as possible. “The color palette was inspired by the surroundings,” says Lonergan, whose nods to nature include terra-cotta-colored tile for the floor, green subway tile for the backsplash and rattan counter stools for the island. “We wanted to get away from the typical white kitchen but still do something that felt fresh and modern.”

A Modern Classic
Maestri Studio lends its golden touch to a light, bright master bath in Dallas.

For the modern farmhouse situated on a double lot in Lakewood and designed by Dallas’ Maestri Studio, capacious accommodations both inside and out were a must-have for the homeowners. “We wanted it to feel like an old East Texas estate,” says architect Eddie Maestri, “but with modern touches.” The main house (there’s also a large carriage house on the property) encompasses 6,000 square feet, with more than 1,000 of those square feet dedicated to the first-floor master suite. In the master bath, Maestri made sure to keep things commodious there as well. “It was made to feel open and airy,” he says, noting that his-and-her elements abound, including dual water closets, dual custom vanities and dual showerheads. With its vintage-inspired chandelier and gold faucet-adorned soaking tub, the space is as glamorous as it is comfortable thanks to the finishing touches added by Maestri Studio interior designer Katie Paulsen, who opted for generous doses of brass to accent the mostly white room.

Bright Ideas
Primary colors are the order of the day for a multihued kitchen designed by Dallas’ Holly Hickey Moore.

“I always say I have a playfully sophisticated aesthetic,” says Dallas-based interior designer Holly Hickey Moore, who relishes mixing patterns, textures and colors in her projects. To see Moore’s signature style in full effect, look no further than a vibrant Vermont kitchen she designed for a longtime client. A pair of red lanterns by Coleen & Company illuminates walls covered in bright blue subway tile, and a large island doubles as a prep space and dining area. The whimsical Roman shades—fashioned out of Schumacher’s Citrus Garden, an archival Josef Frank print from the 1940s—feature bright pops of yellow, green, red and blue. “She wasn’t sure about window coverings in the kitchen,” Moore says about her client, “but they changed the whole look of the room.” Once a minimalist, the homeowner has since come around to her designer’s way of thinking. “In the beginning, she didn’t want to do anything too bold,” Moore says. “Now she has really come out of her comfort zone.”

A Room With a View
Picture-postcard scenery provides a handsome backdrop for a master bath in Marble Falls.

Perched on a 50-acre hilltop site in Marble Falls, a contemporary house designed by architect Winn Wittman takes advantage of the surrounding scenery at every opportunity—even in the master bathroom. To keep the home from being visible from nearby roads, the house was sited just below the ridgeline. “Because it’s so private, we were able to do floor-to-ceiling windows that look out for miles,” says the founder of Winn Wittman Architecture. Completed last fall, the 3,565-square-foot net-zero-energy house, built by Zbranek & Holt Custom Homes, serves as the Austin-based homeowners’ Hill Country retreat. It features midcentury-modern references throughout, as well as special custom touches. Wittman designed the double floating vanities in the master bath, and Michael Brozgul of Austin’s Edwood Studio created the wooden bench that penetrates the glass shower wall. Sleek lighting, brushed stainless steel plumbing fixtures and a splash of greenery complete the package.